General warns of cutting Army funding

Australia's army is in better shape now than it's been for decades but it could end up unable to meet future challenges in an unstable region if subjected to a post-Afghanistan peace dividend, army chief Lieutenant General David Morrison warns.

In a speech seized on by the opposition as showing Labor funding cuts could put soldiers' lives at risk, General Morrison said the current straitened fiscal climate posed a very real risk to the army's approved plan for development out to 2030.

He said the army was now in better shape than at any time since he joined in 1979.

But an army was surprisingly fragile and that could change quickly, he said.

At issue is the shape of the defence force as it draws down from long deployments in Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomons, and with defence funding under considerable stress.

"As our next white paper approaches, I do hear again siren voices assuring us that after Afghanistan we are unlikely to send the army away to another foreign entanglement, that what needs to happen is to mind our own business," General Morrison told the National Security Institute at Canberra University.

"Frankly, having been a senior soldier in the army that had been seriously weakened by the proponents of such thinking, this fills me with concern. This is historical amnesia that is breathtaking in its complacency."

General Morrison said even the most optimistic assessment of Australia's strategic environment suggested we live in an unstable region where the global balance of power might be contested.

"My professional view is that the strength of the army at the moment, the capabilities that are intrinsic in it will be necessary for Australia's security needs in the immediate future and should not be diminished," he said.

Extracts of his speech were published in The Australian newspaper, leading him to begin his presentation on Friday by denying he was engaging in "megaphone tactics" directed at the government.

Neither he said, had any direction been given to him by the government to ease off. But he did admit he had discussed it with defence force chief General David Hurley, who provided him with "counsel and support."

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said General Morrison was entitled to raise any issue he wanted, adding that the government was doing everything necessary to ensure Australian troops in Afghanistan had the best possible force protection.

But opposition defence spokesman David Johnston said this was the wake-up call the government needed.

"The prime minister and the defence minister have refused to guarantee there will not be more defence funding cuts in the next budget," he said in a statement.

"Lieutenant-General David Morrison is not alone in his concerns about Labor's scant regard to funding the nation's defence force."

Former army chief Peter Leahy, now head of the Canberra University national security program, said he shared General Morrison's concerns that past reduction of defence capabilities during periods of peace had left the army poorly prepared for World War II, Vietnam and East Timor.

General Leahy said the least likely of all future scenarios was a conventional attack on Australia.

Most likely there would be more missions like the interventions in Somalia, Rwanda, Cambodia, the Solomons and East Timor.

"That's the bit that needs boots on the ground," he told ABC Radio.

"If government gets into strife the first place they are going to look is decreasing the size of the army and frankly that would be the wrong thing to do."